


Home Free

by tyrsibs (twiceshy)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Relationship, more of a flirtation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:35:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24656944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twiceshy/pseuds/tyrsibs
Summary: A little Rowena/Sam flirtation, a little spellwork--what could go wrong?  For Rowena, an uninvited tour of the Bunker archive leads to a little comeuppance. Takes place after 13x12, "Various and Sundry Villains," written for themegalosauras.   (This is just a wee bit of fluff--I hope you enjoy it!)
Relationships: Sam/Rowena
Kudos: 21
Collections: Supernatural Spring Fling 2020





	Home Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themegalosaurus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/gifts).



Rowena sat on the concrete floor of the archives, tucking her feet into the folds of her skirts, and sighed. The breathy little noise seemed to bounce into the corner of the bunker walls and back to her, as trapped in the room as she herself. For all that she might have screamed for someone to release her, she knew that no sound would travel into the hallways, even if one of the brothers were at home to find her.

She’d felt the snapping of the sachet inside her leg some uncounted hours ago, and she’d roused, for all the good it had done. She was indignant at the waste of a good resurrection. Awakened, only to start the whole tedious process again.

No one knew where to find her. This had always been her way, her ability to slip in and out of places unnoticed, her love of luxurious power obtained by stealth and maintained by magic, had kept her out of the clutches of the Grand Coven and away from hunters and other beasties for centuries. Until her Fergus introduced her to the Winchesters. The boys themselves were mostly a nuisance, though sometimes useful and entertaining, but their treasure trove of stolen artifacts that lay hidden in the bowels of the dank place they called home, had proven far too tempting. 

And so here she sat, grown careless and then trapped within the very trove, inside a circle of will that flashed purple each time she attempted to breach it and knocked her ignobly back onto the floor. All because she moved a druidic staff a few teensy inches as she perused the leather-bound books behind it on the shelf. The moment the staff rolled off the shelf and hit the tiled floor, a previously hidden rune sprang to life on the tile and the trap had sprung. She tried to jump away before the circle closed, but she had to admit, though only to herself, that perhaps she was not so lithe as once she was. The staff rolled away as though under its own power, and jammed itself somehow half under the door. 

It would have been far easier, of course, if she could have blamed Sam for all this. But it was her own spell, her own need to slip in and take what she needed, to claim what had been stolen from witches in the first place. And, if she managed to take a moment with the giant hunter, well, who could blame a girl for taking such a risk? 

It was a simple matter of slipping a smallish hex bag into Sam Winchester’s pocket at just the right time. When he leaned over her, tucking the page from the Black Grimoire into her hand, the moment was just too opportune. And even though the genuine smile on her face had surprised her as she felt the rough edges of the page, torn in haste from the Grimoire, she would not feel guilty about it. 

Not even when his lips had brushed the top of her head, or when he glanced around at his brother to be sure that Dean hadn’t pulled his head from the boot of his car and seen the exchange. It’s not as though the bag contained anything really nasty. It was just a focus, something for him to carry close to his skin, something to make the next spell she worked on him a tiny bit more powerful. It was small enough that he likely wouldn’t notice it even if he put his hand in this pocket, and powerful enough to weave its working even if he was not wearing the jacket when the spell went off. 

She simply had to time her next visit to the bunker very carefully. Not too soon, and certainly not when his lummox of a brother would interfere. Rowena followed the Winchesters to the bunker, she watched, and she waited from the semi comfort of the best hotel she could find in the area. It took less than a week before her raven eye found the elder Winchester roaring away from the hole in the ground in his ancient, beloved auto, leaving Samuel alone in the place. She hummed to herself as she left her spell work sitting on the table and stepped to the door. 

She’d knocked on the large circular door; she supposed he’d earned that much respect from her. It took him a long time to answer, and when he did, he peeked around the edge of the frame, his hands out of sight. 

“Now, Samuel, is that the way to greet a friend?” She smiled her broadest smile, then curled the corners of her lips into wicked suggestion. 

“Rowena?” His brow furrowed as he looked at her. 

_“Pax Amica,”_ she whispered in reply, her fingers drawing a sigil in the air. 

Sam stood up straight, and he shoved something into his back belt. His arms came out again, loose and flopping. He grinned, wide to match her smile, “What can I help you with?” he asked. 

She stepped over the threshold; her fingertips splayed on his chest to push gently at him. He moved backwards eagerly, though not fast enough to lose contact with her fingers. 

At this memory, Rowena sighed again, and lay down upon the cold tiles. She didn’t know how long she’d been in this godforsaken room, surrounded by books she could not touch, artifacts that hummed at her even as they lay tucked out of sight. But she remembered the touch, how his chest shivered when she drew the sigil that completed the spell just below his throat. Her own throat clenched as she tried to swallow. The cruel circle was denying her even the basest of self-preservation magics. 

But she could remember how she had backed Sam up all the way to the railing over the iron staircase, and how he’d bent in compliance, waiting for either a kiss or a slap, welcoming either one. 

“Is your brother at home?” She’d asked, her lips inches from his. 

“Dean?” Sam’s eyes were half closed, his speech slurred as he dragged his consciousness up to answer her question. “No, he’s—supply run. Got a case. We’re going—”

“Good. That’s good, pet.” Still, she pouted a bit. The grumpy one wouldn’t be gone long enough to have much fun, then. Rowena straightened, and Sam pulled himself upright with her, keeping contact with her hand until she dropped it. He swayed in place, staring at her with delight in his hazel eyes. 

“Well, then,” she said. “Perhaps you could show me where those moldy librarians who made this place hid the good stuff that they--collected?” 

He blinked. Smiled. Held out his arm without another word. 

The door to the archive, the one she was staring at now from the floor, was the same as any other door in this dreary maze, though she felt the sigils protecting it as they drew close. Sam reached over her head and began poking at an antique keypad embedded on the wall. Its yellowed keys were marked with symbols that he pressed in turn, powering down the sigils. She heard the lock tumblers roll inside the wall. He flung open the door with a flourish. 

“Ohhh-“ she said as she gazed into the room. It took her a moment to compose herself, while Sam stood patiently by. 

“Thank you, Samuel.” She slid past him into the room, lifting her arms as though basking in the power emanating from the musty stacks, before twirling to face him. He stood in the doorway, that goofy grin of his turning just a bit wolfish. It would have been so simple a thing to reach up, grasp his chin, and draw his face to hers. Instead, her hands worked a new spell in the air between them. She lowered her voice into a command. _“Obliviscatur eius,”_ she said, and she swung the door shut between them. 

From the other side, she heard him say, “huh—” as he found himself standing in front of a door he hadn’t meant to walk to. She could practically hear him shake his head, turn to look one way down the long hall, then the other, still dazed. She heard his steps when he finally wandered off, leaving her to her perusal of his treasure. 

Even as Rowena felt herself drifting away into unconsciousness, she managed a little grin at the way his voice had sounded, soft and lost and full of longing, from the other side of the door. If this was to be the last memory she would have this go-around, it wasn’t such a bad one. 

When the staff rolled back into the room, she noted it dimly, and her head could not be troubled by the gruff voice cursing on the other side of the door, calling for her Samuel---

Her head was pounding in a rhythm like a thousand soldiers marching across her bed, but at least it lay on something soft. Her eyes did not want to open, but finally she convinced them to let a wee bit of the world in. The room was dark, but the ceiling was no longer stone. Her hands felt rough sheets beneath her fingers. Cautiously she turned her head. 

If she could have bolted upright, she would. She was in a bed, but the room was not in the bunker or her apartment. It had the impersonality of a motel room, of the sort that would normally turn her nose up. It smelled faintly of antiseptic. She clutched at her dress, and relaxed, only a little, when she realized that she was still wearing the same one that she had worn to the bunker. How many days ago? Her hand went to her head as she turned to look to the other side of the room. 

A little light shone atop a particle board table next to the bed she lay in. In its dim pool of light stood a bottle of water and a brightly colored package of the size and shape of a candy bar or protein square. Next to them, she saw a little bundle of leather, and she groaned as she recognized her hex bag. 

But she reached for the water all the same. As she raised herself with some effort, her arm stilled as she saw a sheet of notebook paper under the candy bar, and she recognized Sam’s handwriting scrawled across the top. 

_Rowena-_

_This will never happen again._

Beneath this terse note, a different hand, Dean’s no doubt, had added, 

_You’re still breathing thanks to Sam. It’s more than you deserve._

She crumpled the paper, threw it across the room. The room was quiet. Soon she would get up, take a shower, pull on the dress that she would burn the moment she returned to her apartment, and leave this place, and the memory of her failed raid, behind. She wouldn’t stop until she was safely behind her apartment doors. She sighed, and reached for the water bottle. 

Home free, she’d be. Safe. Alive. Alone. 


End file.
